Writing a book about your own life is not for the fainthearted, says entrepreneur Kaz Staples.
She writes about business-building, cancer and the difficult decision to sell her high-end cereal company Pure Delish in the new memoir Cereal Entrepreneur.
Photo: Supplied
As a child, Staples says she grew up "getting kudos" for her baking and reading cookbooks in bed at night.
But it wasn't till 1997 – when she was raising two little boys and strapped for Christmas present money – that she turned food into a business.
Staples' first venture was making gourmet Christmas cakes to sell at local markets.
The Christmas cakes – which were produced up until 2017 – were much lighter than traditional Christmas cake and full of nuts and ginger, she says.
But after nine years of making them, Staples was looking to "get away from the Christmas craziness" and started thinking about breakfast food.
"'I thought 'what am I going to do? Cereal. People eat cereal every day. Maybe that will be good'."
In 2006, when Auckland's high-end grocery store Farro Fresh first opened its doors, Staples was invited to come up with a new cereal brand for the launch.
Her 'Original Chunky Nut Muesli' was an immediate hit and still on the market today.
'When I first [put the muesli out] I just wanted [to create] a luxe, supersexy, premium breakfast cereal… I was just like 'I'm just gonna make it how I want it. I'm not going to think about cost. So in went all the beautiful nuts and unique ingredients…
"That is when I went 'yeah, I think I've cracked it'."
Staples says she "did what she needed to do" to defy the odds and bring a product to market that was up four times the price of the traditional breakfast cereal.
As food trends changed, recipes were adjusted, she says. When she became an international CrossFit competitor and went paleo, the still-popular No Grainola range was launched.
Behind the scenes, though, Staples' personal challenges were mounting.
In 2015, while visiting food shows in Australia, she got a call from her doctor in New Zealand. After telling her to sit down, he revealed that she had breast cancer.
Staples flew home, went thorugh a mastectomy, breast reconstruction and hormone therapy and thought she was all clear.
The following year, though, she felt another lump – the cancer was back.
Staples' mother, who'd had been diagnosed with leukemia in 2014, died during her radiation treatment,
The next year, Staples found out her brother's wife had terminal pancreatic cancer and supported his family in Sydney for her final 12 weeks.
Selling Pure Delish in 2019 felt like "like losing a leg" but she knew the timing was right.
She says her family is still finding its way through their losses.
"My dad is still struggling without my mum, my brother is struggling without the kids and we're sort of in there somewhere trying to hold everybody up.
"At the same time, I'm incredibly grateful that I survived and I'm thriving in every way I can."
Staples says she wouldn't change the journey that's led her to where she is today – financially secure and feeling blessed.
"Your life is a tapestry of ups and downs and arounds, highs, lows, everything… there are miracles everywhere if we choose to see them. The dark and the light, I suppose you have to have it all."
